Former Newcastle midfielder Joey Barton believes his ‘outlaw’ reputation led to a ‘harsh’ 18-month ban from football although he does not think he’d have made it at the top level without his dark side.

The Liverpool-born footballer has not played since April 2017, when the FA gave him an 18-month ban - later reduced by five months - for breaking betting rules. Barton placed 1,260 wagers on football matches over a 10-year period up to May 2016.

He was quizzed on Wednesday morning by Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain about the ban.

Piers asked him why Barton risked his career to gamble when he knew it was illegal.

Barton said he viewed the danger in a similar way to driving 72mph on the motorway.

“If you get caught there’s a risk, but I did not think it was that serious,” said Barton.

Until 2014, footballers could bet on matches they were not involved in.

But since then, those in the top eight leagues of the English men’s game are banned from staking a wager on any football match.

Barton was found guilty of breaking rules through both periods, although he maintains he never bet on a match involving his team when he was “in a position to influence the game”.

Joe Barton reckons the FA made an example out of him (Image: ITV Good Morning Britain)

Barton, who served 77 days in prison as a Newcastle player after being jailed for affray in 2008, believes he was punished harshly by the FA, due to his ‘outlaw’ reputation, at a time when footballers gambling on the sport was “commonplace”.

Barton said on Good Morning Britain: “Because I’d lived as an outlaw, I’d been in trouble lots of times, I got an outlaw punishment, I was maybe made an example of. But I think if they were to enforce the rules, we’d end up with an epidemic...there is an epidemic.”

During his time at Newcastle, Barton placed 23 bets on United matches, including seven stakes on the Magpies to lose, all in games he did not appear in. Barton did stake £500 on Newcastle to beat Stevenage in an 2011 FA Cup tie which he played in, but his side were on the wrong side of a 3-1 upset.

Gambling, Barton said, was his release, which he did as an “intellectual exercise” due to his interest in following sport.

He told Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid: “I was betting before I was a footballer, becoming a footballer was secondary, I’d already picked up the habit.”

Joey Barton is dismissed at Anfield (Image: Getty Images Europe)

The former Manchester City, QPR and Burnley star appeared on GMB on Wednesday, fresh from speaking at the Cambridge Union on Tuesday night.

The 35-year-old has attracted controversy throughout his career. At Manchester City, Barton stubbed a cigar out in a young player’s eye during a team party. At Newcastle, he missed matches for his prison stint and was later suspended by the club following a bust-up with then manager Alan Shearer after Barton was sent off for a rash challenge on Liverpool’s Xabi Alonso during a 3-0 defeat in 2009.

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During the ITV show, Piers asked the player how his “head” influenced his career.

Barton believes he would not have spent a decade playing top-level football without his personality’s influence.

He said: “If I didn’t have that quirkiness, that bit of darkness about me, I don’t think I’d have been good enough to be a player. Maybe I’d be able to play further down the chain, non-league. I’d have had to work as a roofer on the side.”